


Lies and Promises

by Deannie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Allergies, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam knows there are promises that can't be kept. But he doesn't have to like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lies and Promises

**Author's Note:**

> Written May 2006

> Sam ran.  
> 
> 
> He'd never run so hard in all his life and the half-mile to the car seemed endless and the one thought he could keep in his head after a while was _don't die, don't die, don't die..._  
> 
> 
> And he ran faster.

  


* * * * * * *  


"Hellhounds, huh?" Dean asked skeptically. "Look a little like hellpuppies to me."  


Sam had to admit that they kind of did. Dad and Dean leaned against the massive redwood with him, and all three of them looked out at the clearing beyond: the site of their prey.  


Their prey was a pack of ten hellhounds, in miniature. They were the size of bulldogs, but the smell of sulfur in the air and the distinctly demonic sound of their growls marked them as deadly. Even without the fifteen head of cattle they'd killed in the last week. And they were getting closer to Rittenton every night, which meant that, eventually, they were going to get a taste for human flesh.  


As long as it wasn't tonight.  


Sam hefted his shotgun full of consecrated silver buckshot and waited, wanting to be anywhere but here...  


* * * * * * *  


Dad had been adamant about Sam coming on this hunt, though he'd been pretty good for most of the school year about leaving Sam alone to do his work, really. High school had been a lot harder than Sam had thought it would be, and he'd worked as hard as he could through his freshman and sophomore years, fitting in his studying around hunting weekends and dealing with four schools over the two years. Now, in his junior year, he thought they might stay put long enough for him to really settle in, and he had to worry about AP classes and SATs and a million other things that he didn't remember Dean ever talking about.  


Which really shouldn't have surprised him. For Dean, school was more about getting out and being social--meeting girls. Sam was in it for the learning, which amused Dean to no end.  


And yet, Dean was still the one who always convinced Dad that Sammy had to get his degree and "keep up appearances." They didn't want the truant police after them, did they? When Dean put it that way, Dad always gave in.  


But not this time.  


"You're getting soft, Sammy," Dad had announced last week. Sam stopped himself from pointing out that, instead of studying, he'd spent the previous weekend sparring with Dean and learning better ways to shoot an arrow. "You're going to Rittenton with us on Saturday."  


Sam didn't bother telling his dad that the SATs were in two weeks' time and he was behind enough as it was. It wouldn't have done any good anyway. Maybe Dean could convince Dad later, and Sam could spend the weekend locked in the house going over the tables and tables of vocabulary words his English teacher had given him.  


"No dice, man," Dean told him that evening after Dad had gone out with one of his friends to do research--or something. Dean tossed Sam's math book to the far end of the table and sighed. "I tried, but..." He shrugged. "You know Dad when he's got his mind set on something."  


"Yeah," Sam ground out bitterly, staring at his chemistry book without really reading the words. "It's called our life."  


"Oh, come on, Sammy, it's not that bad," Dean replied blithely. "You've got another two weeks to get ready for this."  


Trust Dean to know when the SATs were without Sam ever bringing it up. Hell, Dean hadn't even taken them--said he figured there wasn't much point in a college degree if he couldn't get one in demon-hunting--but he still knew exactly when they were. Dad didn't even know they existed, probably.  


"Dean, I can't pay for college," Sam tried to explain. That had been stressing him out for a while now. "I have to do well enough to get a scholarship."  


Dean's features closed off a little, as they always did when Sam started talking college. "I thought you had that--what? National Honor scholarship? From that test you took last year?"  


Sam sighed. Dad didn't know about that, either. "It's a National _Merit_ scholarship, and that's only a couple thousand a year."  


"So? That'll pay your tuition at State, won't it?" Dean replied reasonably. Missing the point as usual. "I can make up anything else you need."  


_Yeah, with a little judicious credit card fraud. That'll look great on my law school resume._  


Sam dropped his head to rest his chin on his chest for a minute before meeting his brother's eyes. What he saw there dried up everything he had planned to say. He didn't say, "I don't want to _go_ to State, Dean. I don't want to go to some podunk university whose diploma is going to make every law school in the country laugh at me. I want to go somewhere _real_. Somewhere _normal_. Stanford, or Yale, or Harvard." He didn't state the underlying truth, which was that he couldn't hunt anymore. He couldn't go out and see all the things they saw and know the things they knew and hope to live life in the real world.  


No, he didn't say any of that. The fear and anxiety hidden in his brother's eyes instead made him say, "I guess you're right," instead.  


Dean clapped him on the shoulder and stood. "There you go, then!" He leaned in, looking apologetic. "Look, it's a quick in-and-out." He tossed Sam's math book back. "It's still a couple of days till the full moon, so it's probably just hellhounds. We'll be done by Saturday night, and I'll make sure Dad leaves you alone to study all day Sunday, okay?"  


Sam nodded. It wasn't okay at all, but he couldn't fault Dean for that. Once again, Sam realized that he was just... different. Different from Dad, who only cared about the next lead on Mom's killer. Different from Dean, who danced in and out of every hunt with the grace of a hunter and the luck of an angel....  


Different from the fucked family that was his.  


He watched Dean head back to his bedroom and sighed. He'd better get studying while he could, he guessed. The SATs waited for no man.  


* * * * * * *  


And neither, apparently, did hellhounds.  


"All right, boys," Dad murmured over the sound of snarls and growls in the clearing. "We'll split up. Catch them from all sides."  


Sam nodded, and Dean did the same.  


"Sam, you stay here," Dad ordered. "Give me and Dean a couple of minutes to get into position and then..." His grin was as feral as any hellhound's could be. "Try not to shoot each other."  


Sam watched Dean go off to his left while Dad headed right, and sighed at his father's pep talk.  


"Thank you, Mike Brady," he grumbled to himself, watching the edges of the clearing for the telltale signs that Dad and Dean were ready for him.  


When the first shot came, it took out one hellpuppy in an instant, the buckshot taking off its head, the silver making the body smoke. The hellhounds turned toward Dean's hiding space, marking him as the one who'd taken out their packmate.  


Dad followed Dean's shot with his own, and Sam was firing right along with him. Ten dwindled to seven... to four... Two hunters covered the other one while each of them reloaded in turn: Dad, Sam...  


Sam broke cover when his dad did, trying to back Dean up as he took too long to reload. The surviving hounds were quick, ducking away from the deadly buckshot and trying to get at Dean, ignoring Dad and Sam unless it was to fall under their fire.  


Sam watched the greenery rattle as Dean pulled back a bit and Dad hit another hound, reloading faster than he would have had he had two guns to cover him. There had to be something wrong with Dean's shotgun. Sam and Dad both stepped up their own barrage, each taking out another hellhound as they tried to give him cover. That made... nine? Ten?  


Too late, Sam realized that it was definitely nine, and the yell Dean gave out was part pain and part frustration and anger.  


"Dean!" Dad's shout coincided with Sam's--and with a thick, wet thud that was obviously a shotgun barrel hitting hellhound flesh.  


And just as obviously, the strike hadn't done any good at all, Sam saw as he burst through the bushes to see his brother's arm caught in the jaw of the remaining hound.  


"Hold still, son," Dad called. _His_ shotgun--firing quick and true--did a lot more good, and the dead hound flopped onto Dean's chest. He let out a disgusted yelp as the smoking flesh started burning through his jacket. Sam dug out his flashlight and flicked it on, giving them more light to work with than the near-full moon could provide.  


"Get this thing off me, will ya?" Dean groused, hissing as Sam came over and kicked the carcass away. Dad was kneeling beside Dean, taking a look at his arm. Dean looked at it, too, and grimaced. "At least it's not as bad as the last time," he commented, a little breathless still from the excitement.  


Sam remembered the last time vividly. He'd been fourteen and left at home, studying late when Dad and Dean had come in from that particular hunt. Dean's arm had looked even worse then--the bite was bad enough, but hellhounds had acid in their saliva and the burns had been pretty impressive. Sam could still see the scars if he looked hard enough. And the cursed--literally--infection had lasted for weeks, even with the daily dousings in holy water.  


These hounds were smaller, so the wound didn't look so bad. Probably hurt like hell, though. Especially with Dad pouring that necessary holy water over it. Sam watched his brother grit his teeth and deal as the cursed hound blood bubbled over his own.  


"Did we get all of them?" Dean asked. His breath was still coming in gasps, and he sounded like he could barely get a word out.  


Which wasn't right. Because Dean was supposed to gripe at Dad to let him up. He was supposed to make some wisecrack. He wasn't supposed to just... lie there. Sam felt something cold that he didn't understand take up residence in his chest and knelt down on Dean's other side. "Yeah, we got 'em, Dean." Dean was pale. And getting paler.  


"Good," Dean whispered, choosing to look away at nothing as Dad continued washing the wound. "Wouldn't want..." His voice trailed off, like he was too tired to finish, and his eyes were a little bit glassy. A little bit off.  


"Dad." Sam knew his voice was sharp, and scared, but Dean just looked... wrong.  


Dad looked up from the bite wound, into Dean's face, and Sam could see that he saw it, too. Their father's voice was gentle as he reached out a hand and turned Dean's face toward him. "How're you doing, Dean?" he asked quietly.  


"I don't..." Dean frowned, and Sam was alarmed to see his lips looking slightly blue by the white glare of the flashlight. "You think it broke..." He gasped an inhale and continued. "...something when it fell on me?" He gasped again, harsher this time, and Sam's heart started racing. "'S hard to breathe..."  


Dad's voice was calm, but Sam could see that his hands were trembling. "Sammy? You want to go to the car and get the triage kit?"  


Sam looked at Dean, watching his brother's eyes slide farther out of focus. "What's going on?"  


"Sam, the kit," Dad barked quietly, watching Dean just as closely. Hazel eyes were closed now, and they could clearly hear Dean's rasping breath. "Now." The hand that had been holding his son's face now slapped it lightly. "Dean? Son, come on, now. Stay awake, buddy."  


But Dean wasn't staying awake. Sam could see that in the split second it took him to kick his brain into gear and get moving, running as fast as he could, stumbling over roots he could barely see in the dim moonlight filtering through the trees.  


He didn't know what had happened, only that Dean was getting worse by the second. Maybe they weren't regular hellhounds--maybe the fact that they were smaller meant they were different. More deadly....  


God, he'd never seen Dean look that bad! It seemed like, every hunt, every time, Dad or Dean or even Sam himself would get a little banged up. A _little_ , sure, but...  


But Dean was dying. Sam had seen it in the blue lips and those vague eyes. And in Dad's sheer terror.  


So Sam ran.  


He'd never run so hard in all his life and the half-mile to the car seemed endless and the one thought he could keep in his head after a while was _don't die, don't die, don't die, don't die..._  


And he ran faster.  


* * * * * * *  


By the time he'd wrenched open the trunk of the car, grabbed the triage kit, and run back, he felt like he was dying himself. But it hadn't taken more than ten minutes. Maybe Dean...  


Any maybes flew out of his head as he came to a dead stop at the edge of the small clearing.  


Dad was leaning over Dean, breathing rhythmically into his mouth.  


"Dad?" Sam was amazed he could even get the word out. "Did his...?"  


Dad shook his head, breathed for Dean, and looked up at Sam, his eyes so full of panic that Sam couldn't believe he was still managing to breathe for his son. "His heart's still going," he said briefly, breathing for Dean again. "Throat's too swollen. I can barely get the air in."  


After the next breath, he gestured for Sam to kneel next to him, and Sam did, the triage kit smacking to the ground. "In the top tray," Dad said, then breathed. "Brown cylinder. Looks like a pen." Another breath. Dean was more blue now than white.  


Sam grabbed the epipen--he'd been through the kit often enough to know exactly where and what everything was. "Allergic reaction?" he asked incredulously. Though it made a little sense. Dean had already had one exposure to hellhound spit, and it took two to set off a reaction...  


"Don't know," Dad said, and breathed. "Don't care. It'll open up his throat--" Breathe. "And that's all I care about right now."  


Sam nodded, priming the pen and jabbing it into Dean's leg through his jeans. He tried to tell himself it was okay that Dean didn't even flinch.  


"Keep track of his pulse," Dad commanded, and Sam took his brother's wrist in his hand, glad to be doing something that didn't include sitting by impotently while his brother died.  


SAT word, his mind thought inanely. Impotent. Noun. Lacking in power.  


It was a minute before the slow, unsteady pulse under Sam's fingers started to pick up. A minute more before Dad stopped hovering quite so closely and started breathing for himself alone.  


It was definitely a longer two minutes than Sam had ever wanted to spend in his life.  


"Should we get an ambulance?" Sam asked after another minute or two. Dean kept breathing, though it sounded thick and wrong. Sam tried to tell himself it was okay that Dean wasn't waking up. He wasn't blue anymore, and that had to mean something, right?  


Dad sat back, his hands finally still. "There's a hospital in Rittenton. We'll take him ourselves."  


Which meant Dean was in a bad way. Dad had taken forty stitches from _Sam_ once to avoid a hospital visit. Too many questions, he said.  


"He's going to be okay, right?" Sam wondered why he sounded five years old to himself.  


And then he wondered why it took his dad so long to answer. Dad looked down at Dean, put a hand out to squeeze Dean's shoulder... and finally said, "Yeah, Sammy. He'll be fine."  


As if to save Sam a little more worry--or just to prove Dad right, which was more likely--Dean sucked in a wheezing breath and opened his eyes.  


"Dad?" he asked in a croak, his gaze staring off somewhere to the left of center as his head turned toward his father.  


"Yeah, Dean," Dad answered, his voice just as gentle as it had been before. "Right here."  


"I feel like crap." He sounded as disgruntled as he had the last time he came down with the flu.  


Sam sputtered out unwilling laughter and Dean turned his attention to his little brother, though his eyes still weren't tracking.  


"Hey, Sammy."  


Sam sighed. Dean only called him Sammy to piss him off these days, so he rose to the bait to make Dean feel like things were going to be okay. "It's Sam."  


Dean closed his eyes. "Whatever."  


* * * * * * *  


The trip back to the car had been hard, with Sam and Dad dragging a half-conscious Dean between them, one of his arms slung over each of their shoulders. Dad took the wheel for the drive to the hospital while Sam sat in the back seat, a pillow for his brother's head.  


But as hard as that trip was, things got worse when they got to the hospital.  


There was noise, and questions, and people whisking Dean away on a stretcher. And Sam couldn't do anything but lock his knees to keep himself upright and stand next to his dad while John Winchester lied as only he knew how, explaining that they had been out hunting "deer" and had lost track of Dean, and found him with the arm wound, not breathing. They didn't know what had bitten him--whatever it was had run off before they got there. Sam tried not to lose it, listening to his dad tell them that Sammy had an allergy to bee stings, and Dean's throat was closed up and Dad used Sammy's epipen because it seemed like the thing to do...  


Sam was going to go crazy if he had to hear his father hide the truth one more time.  


He left Dad's side, sinking unnoticed into a nearby chair. God, why couldn't they just be _normal_? Why was everything faking and lying and killing and being killed and--  


"Mr. Henderson?" a young doctor asked, standing before Dad.  


He couldn't even tell the truth about their fucking _name_.  


"How's my son?" Dad's worry was real, at least. The fact that it was his fault Dean had been hurt in the first place--his fault that they were hunting at all--was real, too. And right now, Sam hated his father as much as he hated the thing that had driven them all to this life in the first place.  


"Dean's doing well, considering how long he was out there," the doctor allowed, the reassurance enough to get Sam up and standing by to hear the rest. "He's breathing easier, and we have him on antihistamines to get him over the last of the anaphylaxis. We're more concerned right now with the bite itself. You say you have no idea what might have done it?"  


Dad shook his head. "No. We were out hunting deer. We didn't see anything else. Just... Dean."  


Yeah, and the fact that, sometime today or tomorrow or two weeks from now someone was going to come upon the carnage of ten dead hellhounds had nothing to do with the discussion.  


"Well, whatever it was," the young man continued, "it was pretty venomous--which is what we think caused the allergic reaction. He's already got a pretty bad infection brewing there. And there are what look to be burns around the wound, but I'd be more likely to believe they're a side-effect of the allergy itself."  


Because people didn't _want_ to believe there was anything really evil out there, did they?  


"We'd like to keep him here for a few days. See if we can get the infection a little more under control before we send him home."  


"Can we see him?" Sam asked abruptly, tired of the clash between the world he lived in and the real one. He didn't want to think about the fact that Dean's infection couldn't be cured by medical science, because that was only true in the fucked up universe his family and hunters like them inhabited.  


Dad smiled in a fatherly way that made Sam sick. "This is Sam. He's his little brother."  


"Ah." The man consulted the chart in his hand. "We're settling him into a room right now, Mr. Henderson. Why don't you and your son go and get a cup of coffee. I'll leave word for you at the desk when you can see him."  


Dad nodded and put a hand on Sam's arm, leading him away. Once they turned the corner in the hall, however, Sam threw off his dad's grip and walked away without a word. He didn't even care that his father ordered him to come back.  


Because it was orders that nearly killed Dean. Orders that were one day going to succeed. And damned if Sam was going to be there to watch it happen.  


* * * * * * *  


It took walking from one end to the other of the two-mile strip that was Rittenton's main street before Sam felt in control enough to go back and see his brother. He stopped at the desk, got the room number, and stopped again, just outside the door, looking in at his father, who sat silently by while Dean slept.  


Dean already looked better, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief. God, it had been close. He'd never really processed the fact that one of them could die doing this. Oh sure, they all got banged up from time to time. And Dad had always had contingency plans set up; by the time he was twelve, Sam knew a hundred names and numbers across the country. People he and Dean could call if Dad went off on a hunting trip and never came back.  


But it had all been abstraction before now. Before Sam had held his brother's wrist in his hand while their father tried to breathe life back into a dying body.  


And that father looked up now, rising to his feet when he saw Sam just standing there. He came out into the hall, and his demeanor was stiff. Anger or shame, Sam didn't know. And right now, he honestly didn't give a fuck.  


"I'm... going to go get a hotel room," Dad said quietly. "Stay with your brother?"  


That it was a question and not an order didn't even register for Sam. He just nodded and walked past his dad and into the room, letting the older man come or go. He didn't care. All he cared about was that Dean was breathing.  


He sat down in the chair his father had just vacated and really looked at Dean for a minute. He looked exhausted, even as he slept. There was an IV stuck in his right hand and his left arm was bandaged.  


He looked alive, and Sam guessed that was something.  


Time went by, slow and fast together, as Sam stared at Dean and the wall and the blank TV, but eventually, Dean's eyes opened and fixed on him groggily.  


"Hey," Sam greeted him in a whisper.  


"Hey." Dean's voice was rough, and Sam wondered idly if his throat hurt from being so swollen. "Dad was here?" It was hard to tell if he was asking because he remembered Dad being here or because he just figured he must have been.  


Sam tried to hide his irritation with their father. "He went to get a hotel room."  


Dean nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. "You should get him to drive you home," he offered finally. "At least get your books so you can study here. And you have to get back for school on Monday."  


Sam put on a smile that Dean could have seen through on any normal day. "I can miss a couple of days. You used to do it all the time."  


Dean smirked. "Yeah, but I'm a troublemaker," he replied. "You? You're a boy scout."  


The next smile fit Sam's face a little better. "If I was a boy scout, I'd've sucked the poison out."  


His brother's face scrunched up in a grimace. "Dude, that's gross."  


"Had a look at your arm lately?" Sam retorted, relaxing in stages as they played their familiar game. "Now _that's_ gross."  


"No. And I don't want to." That was no game, though, and Sam wondered if Dean, too, was only just coming to understand that he could have died for a pack of hellpuppies. Dean cracked his eyes open, watching Sam carefully. "You okay?"  


Sam laughed a little weakly in response. "I'm fine, Dean."  


"Bullshit."  


Trust Dean to get to the heart of the matter. "Dean, you scared the hell out of me. You almost..."  


"But I didn't," Dean reminded him, as if that should allow Sam to salt and burn the memory of it. "I probably shouldn't get a dog any time soon, but I'm still here." His eyes opened wider, and Sam could see the sincerity there. "I'm not going anywhere, Sammy. I promise."  


A promise that didn't mean a whole hell of a lot. The longer Dean let Dad drag him all over the country, fighting one evil thing after the other, the sooner something was going to take him down.  


And Sam silently added something else to his list of reasons to stop hunting. He couldn't see all the things they saw and know the things they knew....  


And he couldn't watch Dean die.  


"I'm not going anywhere, either," he replied, matching lie for lie. "Now go to sleep."  


Dean smiled drowsily and closed his eyes.  


"Yes, sir."  


Sam shook his head as Dean's now-strong breathing evened out. _Yes, sir._ Dean was a good little soldier. Always had been. But good little soldiers got cut down in the heat of battle, and Sam wasn't going to let that happen to _him_. He'd study and scrimp and save and somehow, he was going to get the hell out.  


He realized that what he wanted wasn't normal--it was _safe_. He was going to be safe, because safe was the only way he could keep his sanity. And if he got far enough away to truly be safe, then maybe he'd be too far away for word to find him when Dean finally did die in battle.  


Because there was nothing worse than a broken promise, even when you knew it was a lie all along.  


* * * * * * *  
The End  



End file.
